Interesting. Where do these gut-level things come from?

If I can't help how I feel, how can I purposefully change it through introspection?

I still don't see why someone with your view of the matter would bother. If my disposition at point t=0 is just as valid as at t=1, then it would all be inherently consistent.

I agree with @Terrapin Station.

I also think the investments we currently put into space travel are but a drop in the bucket compared to the obscene resources spent on one of the worst contributors to climate change: the military industrial complex.

But why? What's the point?

Nothing else available for what morality ultimately depends on than subjective dispositions. — Terrapin Station

Is that different from intuition?

Hence the word ultimately. That wasn't just there for decoration. — Terrapin Station

But then you said there's nothing else available. Seems contradictory.

It is, because nothing else is available — Terrapin Station

There has to be. Or else everyone would respond to all situations like a toddler.

I'm not saying intuition doesn't play a role. But there are other elements to decision making.

Again, this is ultimately what everyone does. — Terrapin Station

Nope.

Yeah, on my body. How I feel about the situation at hand/what my natural disposition is.

Again, this is ultimately what everyone does. — Terrapin Station

So, if you're just having a particularly bad "body day" you might actually beat up the kid in the alley?

I intentionally try to intuit how I feel about a particular situation, simply as that particular situation. — Terrapin Station

Seems to me you're contradicting yourself now.

Your intuition must be based on something, or else it's just random and random actions won't do anyone any good whatsoever.

No. Because I think that seeing any moral principle as a trump card (so you're falling back on it) always results in ridiculous policies. — Terrapin Station

Seems to me you yourself still fall back on them, even if you're just doing it "intuitively."

And I think you have to distinguish between a naive Kantian maxims doctrine versus more nuanced ethical approaches that take context and situationally conflicting morals into account.

Re your re's, you're totally disregarding my suggestion to leave semantics aside for a moment. When I'm talking about your personal moral maxim, it doesn't matter what other people consider these terms to mean. And your example about offense simply implies that sometimes you think offense is a necessary thing.

Would you beat up a small child in an alleyway if you knew you could get away with it and suffer absolutely zero social or financial or other external consequences? Why or why not?

and I don't use the terms differently . . . well, not that I even use the phrase "moral code") — Terrapin Station

I'm not sure yet either what word I'd use for my personal ethical.... Um, guidelines? But you get my drift.

Sure, it could. — Terrapin Station

Okay, so then you must have some underlying principles you fall back on? And why wouldn't avoiding unnecessary suffering be one of them? (And let's not get sidetracked in semantics. A scenario where you recognize that suffering is unnecessary. And suffering as understood to be something non-masochistic-actually-causing-pleasure-loophole.)

Only if you’re looking for one - ie. if you’re motivated by fear.

Any statement of ethical principle is inaccurate, whether it’s positive or negative. — Possibility

I don't really understand why something like "don't drown kittens in a burlap sack" would be either inaccurate or motivated by fear.

And an ethics where all maxims/codes/whatever you want to call them are inaccurate is not really an ethics per se. I'm not saying it's an indefensible position on that basis, just that it doesn't count as an ethics. Like atheism is not a form of theism.

dispositions or intuited feelings about interpersonal behavior. — Terrapin Station

How do you differentiate that from essentially a moral code? Seems to me at least any intuition could be formally stated as a type of premise?

Relativists or Pragmatists — Mark Dennis

Are you considering things like (but not limited to) evolutionary ethics, virtue ethics, utilitarianism, or rights based ethics to fall under those two categories broadly?

Those who feel that they cannot sustain such an impression (again whether real but forgotten or not real makes no difference) and so had better go with a robust defence of auto didactia — Isaac

Or they are the types, who for whatever reason reject the idea that formal training is important/beneficial for doing philosophy. (Fear of brainwashing seems to be a phobia possible of explaining that for some.)

:roll: :roll: :roll:

But I don’t think it comes down to ‘DON’T’ statements, to be honest. — Possibility

Wouldn't any positive statement imply a negative one?

I don't really understand the questions. If you see fire, water, or an oar, haven't you already used a physical sense to capture empirical information?

In that case really the question becomes: can reason work as well as it might based on the limited empirical information from a limited number of senses?

It's not really an interesting question then, I think. The answer would be: probably, but it would take a lot longer and be less efficient than just touching the darn oar.

We're free! Free at last!

So are you going to publish your book someday?

I'm not sure I understand how you can have an "ethics" of any sort without some principles you fall back on?

Like, you previously stated something along the lines of judging each situation individually, but on what basis do you make a judgement?

I don't know what you mean by "project onto the universe"?

all aspects of human thought and belief are unique to humans: — uncanni

Evolutionary theory suggests otherwise.

Thank you, and yes.



Well, respectfully Terrapin, you may not be the best example to use in this argument because (and correct me if I'm wrong) you have in previous threads claimed to outright reject any overarching princples in ethics. Which really leads to you not having an "ethics" per se.

If you look at any system of ethics, I think you will find (semantics and details of the hows and whys aside) that there are some universal themes.

I always thought that ethics was not defined and it is undefineable. Because it is societal indoctrination, which does not even stick with everyone, and it can hugely differ from society to society, as it is culture-dependent. So how do you prepare to defend a thesis about something undefinable and undefendable? — god must be atheist

Most people who do defend and define ethics just outright don't buy your initial premises.

Something is only then indoctrination when critical thinking is not allowed.

The answer to the problem of different cultural ethical norms is simply that different cultures are (or were at some point in history) wrong about different things.

And anywhere in the world you find the same underlying principles to ethics: don't cause unnecessary suffering, for example.

The theory works as a model, it's just that the model doesn't quite fit reality. — staticphoton

Okay, that makes sense.

If "truth" is subjective — Harry Hindu

Is it objectively or subjectively true that truth is subjective?

That is the thing, the Q theory by itself holds water, — staticphoton

Well... I'll just let the scientists answer that one: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/why-quantum-mechanics-might-need-overhaul

I guess it becomes as epistemological question then in the sense of, how do we know once we've encountered something that is "unknowable" versus "not yet knowable"?

I don't think there have been any negative effects from philosophy in my life per se. The unexamined life is not worth living, better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, etc etc.

But there are social... consequences. It can feel a little isolating every now and then to have thoughts or want to have conversations you can't share with everyone, because they just don't get it/have zero interest. But then you find like-minded people and surround yourself with curious people, and it ain't so bad after all.

One fair example would be the wave/particle duality of matter. We can express it with abstract artifices such as quantum theory, but the brain is incapable of visualizing how a particle can be in one place and everywhere at the same time. — staticphoton

Well, if quantum mechanics works that specific way, then I suppose we have to radically alter logic as we know it. But within the scientific community it's not at all clear that the double slit test really means a particle can be in two places at the same time. I don't have the theoretical knowledge myself to explain their explanations, but the upshot is that QM is far from settled science.

But let's assume for a moment that QM is true. Let's assume that we do have to rethink some of our logical presuppositions. While it may be hard to accept the anti-intuitive notions of QM, I think we so far can still say it's understandable. When I saw particle X was in spots A and B at the same time, I think we all know cognitively what that means, no?

Now on the other hand, if something like Chaos Theory were to hold true, then parts of the universe could not be fully understood with logic or reason, because they defy these. But again, I'm more inclined to agree with those scientists who suggest that we simply have not yet discovered the logical and rational explanation-holes Chaos Theory is trying to fill.

No matter how much information you get there will always be something unprovable within your system. — Sam26

Are you basing this claim on your personal general intuition or some actual question that can be shown to be unanswerable?

Knowledge by inference or proof comes to an end, i.e., not every premise can be shown by inference to be true. — Sam26

Can you give an example that would not be cleared up by simply having more information available? Otherwise, it's a lack of info and not a limit of reason per se.

Unless you want to say that reason is limited by access to information?

For instance you could not count General Relativity, Quantum mechanics, and Buddhism as percentages of the whole, since they all paint a different universe/reality. — staticphoton

Well, then at least two of them are wrong. Or they all are wrong in some ways. Or they're all mostly wrong and something else is true. And "understanding" them would then not really count as understanding the universe.

I think that would be a valid approach, as long as the "pieces" match. — staticphoton

In that case, I think it's entirely possible for the human species to piece together a complete understanding of the universe in the long run.

Kant says pure reason ends at questions like "the beginning of time" and "infinite divisibility." It's possible he's right and we're just not evolved in a way to understand those concepts because we evolved under certain conditions that did not require such an understanding. But on the other hand, I assume we can't know if that is the case until we have enough evidence or knowledge of the universe to get much closer to the answers than we are at the moment.

In sum: we can probably understand the entirety of the universe someday, provided we don't go extinct first.

I would have to go with the greatest minds of course, they represent the upper limit of human cognitive ability. — staticphoton

And do you mean that understanding of the universe has to be collective or can it be singular? Let me rephrase: does a single human being have to be able to understand anything and everything about the universe, or can we have (purely hypothetically) Hawking understand 20%, Einstein a different 20% and so on until we have 100%?

I assume the abilities of someone like Einstein or Hawking or Kant or even someone lesser known like Harvey Siegel to comprehend certain aspects of the universe surpasses the abilities (or inclinations, but I suspect the latter contributes heavily to the former) of your average Joes and Janes.

2. There are aspects of the universe and its workings that are simply beyond the capability of human reasoning. We will continually formulate more sophisticated models to explain the universe, however if somehow the true universal laws were presented to us, it would be beyond our capability to decypher them. The fundamental workings of the universe will forever remain a mystery that the human mind is not capable of grasping. — staticphoton

Question: Whose mind are we referring to here? Your average Joes and Janes? Or the greatest minds of our entire species?

Forget all the technical garble.

It's just the study of what we can know. Simply put: it's the area of philosophy that tries to distinguish justified true belief from mere opinion.

Hope that helps. :)